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blkkizzat · 1 month

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Hey! Indian reader here again, I'm glad you're having a great time here!!

I remember going to Agra on a trip a couple years back. Taj Mehl was amazing to see. And the history behind it is quite interesting. It was supposed to be a gift from the King of Agra to his queen though I don't remember much of the history. One part I do remember (though it's very gruesome yet romantic in a weird way) is that the king ordered that the hands of all the artisans and anyone who worked on the site would be cut off so that they wouldn't be able to create something like the palace again 😭

One tip I have is that you make sure you're not overpaying for the stuff you buy here, considering people WILL overcharge you when they realize you're a tourist. And to wear clothing which covers you up in public because short clothes are usually looked down upon here and for your own safety too depending on where you are 💔

Other than that I also recommend buying spices to take back with you if you're into spicy food!! Indian spices are extremely flavorful and vast in variety but quite expensive in other countries

Hey!! I just got back! It was an amazing trip! Your country is so beautiful. The air quality in some cities was tearing my allergies up but other than that and trying to cross the street when there isnt a traffic light in sight, I had such a great time! I never thought I could be a vegetarian but so much good non meat curries and other options there. I liked Indian food before going but loved all the new dishes I tried too! Although I don't think I will ever find a Dal Makhani or Chana Masala as good as I did at The 1944 Hocco Kitchen in Ahmedabad here in the states. I didn't even like the Dal I had on the trip up until that point it was so rich, smooth and buttery (they cooked theirs for 36hrs). Also getting to try traditional Gujarati cuisine was awesome!

The Dhokla was so good with the chutneys they'd give us as snacks. Plus I thought Japan had the best service, India takes it to a new level! I never been to restaurants where waiters are literally sprinting to your table to make sure you dont serve yourself. I only wanted a bit more curry once but I felt so bad this waiter almost tripped rushing over to me I let him put on two more scoops! Also feels like I'm back home and my grandma is making my plates cause if they see a dish nearly done and that you finished yours they will just scoop the rest into your plate. Even the fast food places (omg the paneer burger and aloo tiki burger at mcdonalds and butter chicken chalupa at taco bell were to DIE for) were far superior to what we have here and they have much more sustainable practices. I swear I gained 5lbs from all the food lmfao!! I'm used to eating either one meal or two small ones a day and my program was feeding us 3 full meals so I had to skip some at times LOL it was too much food!!

The traffic is WILD in India but its so cool to see. I don't think I would ever get used to crossing the street without feeling like I was gonna die though lmfaooo. Also omg being able to Uber a Tuk Tuk was awesome! Although there was a few times me and my friends thought we would see the pearly gates lmfaoooo. I heard that about the Taj artisans too! The tour guide we had was so knowledgable (he was a former pharmacist who went back to school to learn medival indian history as he wanted to be a tour guide instead). He told us it was because after his favored wife died (I think he said it was because she was the only one to give him children successfully) he lost his mind a bit and was locked away by one of his sons after building the Taj (Very sad too as all his sons fought and all but one survived to take over the throne). Oh yes, haha our tour consultant who travelled with us the entire time would haggle for us if we wanted something. He would actually give us a range then tell us to walk down the block then he would start haggling lol. Loved him so much, he really looked out for us!

But omg yeah I noticed that people dress pretty modestly which is wild to me considering how hot it is there but they are used to it but I was dying haha. It was 100 degrees and people were in jackets and jean pants lol. Thankfully I brought long cotton and linen dresses and skirts and was able to buy some flowly loose linen pants and brought lots of electrolyte packets. But even in the hotel (we stayed at the 5 star Hyatt Regency in Ahemedabad) that was pretty internationally catered (omg the best pasta outside of italy I swear I was so surprised haha) there were Indian men intensely staring at me and my friend wearing tight leggings to breakfast even though they came down to our ankles and we had a long sleeve shirt on too. I got on the elevator to run back up to my room for something I forgot and these guys on the elevator were so creepy. They didnt say anything but I could feel them glaring down my back. I'm glad we knew better than to wear them outside but I thought it be okay just in the hotel. That didn't sour my experience though I did meet a lot of very nice and respectful Indian men as well. Two of them (who were pretty cute tbh) helped me with my luggage on the elevator as I was leaving since I had to buy an entire new luggage for all the stuff I bought lol. Yes!! While in Delhi we went to the spice market. We took a cycle rickshaw there. We went to a tourist spice shop there though cause they seal it up well for travel and actually have premixed spice packets you can buy which makes it easier (although im sure much more expensive). I bought a ton of spices and teas haha spent like 20k rupees there lmfaooo. Mostly went so ham there cause my mom used to live in India (her 3rd husband was Indian) and she wanted me to bring her back alot of teas and spices. I got her like 4 different kinds of chai. I'm kinda sad we left right before Holi!!!! I always wanted to experience Holi!!! But since its today (or yesterday lol) and today is the first day of classes back our school had to make sure we were back for classes.

Here’s some more pics!

#lovely anon #thanks so much for asking about my trip! I can’t wait to go back!#want to go to Mumbai #also Bangalore and Goa!

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yerjigsawpuzzleblues · 3 years

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Is there anything we foreigners can do to help with the Myanmar situation outside of stuff like petitions and caards?

Omfg thank you so much for asking :D

Well, to start off, you can donate to fundraisers supporting the civil disobedience movement (CDM) in Burma (workers are striking since the coup to protest and almost of them have not received any wages/salaries since then, y’know). There are a lot of fundraisers (including a few my friend has set up), so if you’re around Vancouver, mayhaps you can drop by my friend’s programme. She’s selling Burmese food and the profits from that will be donated to help the people doing CDM.

You can also write to your elected representatives (i.e,, senators, congresspeople, MPs, etc.) to request them to take action regarding the coup. The military junta et al have a lot of business ties overseas, so that can be a starting point for targeted sanctions, y’know (impose sanctions on MEC and MEHL, please). There is also a lot of aid sent to Burma (we’re poor as fuck, okay?), so you can request your government to stop sending aid via the junta and/or government accounts and instead use NGOs or do so via the government-in-exile, the Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw (CRPH). You can also ask them to back The Gambia in the ICJ case regarding the Rohingya and support referral to the ICC because the military have a lot of war crimes and crimes against humanity under their belt (including genocide). Also, the global arms embargo, you can advocate for an embargo. And of course, they must not recognise the military junta or the State Administration Council (SAC) as the new government, and if possible, recognise CRPH as the legitimate government of Burma.

But most importantly, you can keep an eye on the situation and spread awareness about it. If you’re on Instagram, you can follow @ListenUpMyanmar. A few people my friend knows are admins/mods and they’ve got all the latest updates. If you’re on Twitter, you can follow @MilkTeaMM_MTAM, @ZtozM, @MrattKyawThu, @meemalee, @maytoekhine, @walone4, @MizzimaNews, @IrrawaddyNews*, @FrontierMM, @Myanmar_Now_Eng, @TostevinM, @RapporteurUn, @cape_diamond, @poppymcp, @YangheeLeeSKKU, @hninyadanazaw, etc. — Twitter’s one of the most popular social networking sites in Burma, y’know. The main hashtags are #WhatsHappeningInMyanmar and the ‘abbreviation of month + day + “Coup”’ like #Mar20Coup for almost every day following February 1st 2021, so if you browse those tags, there’s a lot. If you do make your own posts about it, please include pictures and videos; you can find them on Twitter, Reddit (there are a lot of Burma-related subreddits like r/myanmar and r/savemyanmar), and Facebook.

And that’s what you foreigners can do to help with the Myanmar situation.

Once again, thank you soooo fucking much for asking.

ETA: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-myanmar-fight-for-democracy

This is the fundraiser my friend is involved with :)

ETA2: Holy fuck, this website has a lot of resources for emails and fundraisers. https://www.isupportmyanmar.com/petitions

Shoutout to @meemalee on Twitter for sending me this.

#btw I thought I followed you #but turns out I haven’t #sorry about that #thanks so much for the ask #what’s happening in burma #burma #myanmar #drop me a line #the-subservient-human #drop me a line/what’s happening in burma #hadn’t *** I’m fucking illiterate y’know

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german-american-baking · 3 years

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Today I baked ginger cookies! These chewy treats are delicious and a staple at my house and are my most baked item. They are very easy to make and stay fresh a fairly long time. These cookies are perfect for the traditional German “coffee and cake”.

Heute hab ich Zimtkekse gebacken! Diese köstliche Delikatessen sind meine meist gebackene Kekse und findet man oft bei mir zuhause. Diese Zimtkekse sind sehr leicht zu backen und bleiben auch sehr lange gut. Diese Kekse sind perfect zum Kafe und Kuchen :-)

Recipe/Rezept

English:

1½ cups of butter softened + 1 tablespoon neutral oil

1 cup of sugar, additional course sugar for decorating cookies

¼ cup molasses

1 egg

2 ¼ cups of AP flour

1 teaspoon ginger powder

½ teaspoon cinnamon

⅛ teaspoon allspice and nutmeg

1½ teaspoons baking soda

½ teaspoon salt

Preheat the oven to 350F

Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy

Add the egg and the molasses and beat on medium speed until lighter in color, for about a minute

Add in the dry ingredients and carefully mix until a dough forms

Make little balls out of the dough and roll in coarse sugar

Bake for 8-10 minutes

Deutsch:

170g weiche Butter + eine EL Öl

200g Zucker + Hagelzucker zum dekorieren

4 EL Melassesirup

1 Ei

300g Mehl

1 TL Ingwerpulver

½ TL Zimt

⅛ TL Piment und Muskatnuss

4 TL Backpulver

½ TL Salz

Den Ofen auf 175 Celsius vorheizen

Die Butter und den Zucker schaumig schlagen

Das Ei und den Melassesirup zu geben und für eine Minute auf mittlere stuffe rühren

Die trockene Zutaten zugeben und den Teig vorsichtig zusammen kommen lassen

Form aus dem Teig kleine Bälle und roll sie in den Hagelzucker

Back für 8-10 Minuten

#cookies #Kekse #ginger cookies #desserts #nachtisch #kaufe und kuchen #Deutsch #english #deutsch lernen #englisch lernen #learning German #learning english #ESOL #German #baking #cottagecore

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sophyscoronablog · 4 years

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Shop Against Boredom!

Support your LOCAL DEALER & Manufacturer & Companies – Shopping against boredom 😉

Unterstütze deine lokalen Händler, Manufakturen und Unternehmen vor Ort – Shoppen gegen die Langeweile.

My boyfriend and me aren´t shopping against boredom :D

Furthermore we didn´t this hamstering-stuff. Why?

We didn´t change our purchase behaviour that much because of Corona. (I was really sad about the closing of home&hardware stores in the region here for the common people – because of my projects I´m spending a lot of time there )

Mein Freund und ich Shoppen natürlich nicht gegen die Langeweile :D

Des Weiteren haben wir auch nicht gehamstert. Warum auch ?

Wir haben unser Kaufverhalten wegen Corona nicht wirklich geändert. (Ich war aber wirklich traurig über die vorübergehende Schließung der Baumärkte hier in Landkreis für normalsterbliche Menschen, da ich sehr viel Zeit in solchen Geschäften verbringe :D – glücklicherweise sind die jetzt wieder geöffnet (auch für nicht Gewerbetreibende)).

Now as well as in normal times I try to support the Locals – that means:

Wie immer versuche ich auch jetzt die die lokale Wirtschaft zu unterstützen – das bedeutet für mich:

Most of the time I buy my bread at the bakery two buildings away.

Meistens kaufe ich mein Brot in der Bäckerei zwei Häuser weiter.

Sometimes I bake by myself & then something like pizza, baguettes or yeast pastries like Hefezopf. (Now because of easter – a braided yeast bun). I can do these experiments just when there is a lot of freetime – when I got none, I buy Pizza in the local pizzaria. Last time (in Corona time) I even ordered a pizza & it was great. <3

Manchmal backe ich auch selbst & dann aber sowas wie Pizza, Baguettes oder Hefegebäck (aktuell einen Hefezopf für Ostern). Allerdings geht das nur wenn ich wirklich Zeit habe – wenn ich keine habe, kaufe ich die Pizza immer in der nächsten guten Pizzaria. Letztens (in der Corona-Zeit) habe ich Pizza bestellt & die war richtig gut. <3

Hell yeah – I got some fresh yeast yesterday ( but I won´t tell you where it was :P). For my baking experiments I always buy fresh yeast ( I have dry one always in spare ). Last days & weeks I spended a lot of time in supermarkets to search some fresh yeast – it was always out of stock :O How can this happen?! Maybe the guys who bought the flour and the toiletpaper purchased the fresh yeast too. Or poor parents who have to baby-sit their kids now for the first longer time apart from vacation time (in a grown-up stadium) want to teach them how to be a perfect baker – in germany there is a apprenticeship for this (duration: 3 years).

I hope I´ll find yeast the next time too.

Oh Ja! Ihr seht richtig! Ich habe gestern frische Hefe gefunden (aber ich werde euch nicht sagen wo :p ) Für meine Back-Experimente kaufe ich immer frische Hefe (ich habe natürlich immer trockene auf Vorrat). In den letzten Tagen und Wochen bin ich immer in jedem Supermarkt zur Hefe gelaufen & immer war die ausverkauft :O Ich wollte doch nur auf Wunsch meines Freunds Pizza selbst machen…

Wie kann Hefe ausverkauft sein?! Vielleicht haben die Leute, die Mehl und Klopapier gehamstert haben, den Sack zu gemacht und auch einfach die Hefe gehamstert? :D Oder die armen Eltern – die jetzt plötzlich das erste Mal ihre Kids im prä-pubertären Stadium zuhause beschäftigen müssen (außerhalb der Ferien natürlich – so mit Alltag). Und die wollen den armen Kids jetzt beibringen zum perfekten Bäcker zu werden ( Wie wärs mit ´ner 3 jährigen Ausbildung an der Stelle? – da lernen die es richtig und ich habe gehört, die suchen alle 😉 )

Ich hoffe einfach ich finde das nächste Mal auch wieder frische Hefe :D

------------

I try to avoid shopping on amazon, wish et patati et patata.

Ich versuche das Einkaufen auf Amazon, Wish und so weiter so gut wie möglich zu vermeiden.

They don´t pay that much taxes in germany. So this money won´t come back to infrastructure and benefits for german people. The local stores, manufacturer and restaurants – every independent guy in germany has to pay so much money for taxes – I see it like that -> maybe that´s the reason why they can´t give the same price like amazon or some other shops abroad. A webshop can´t give you the same shopping experience like the store you like. Even I avoid some shops because of bad quality or bad customer service. I don´t have to - because Competition is big ;)

Die bezahlen nämlich kaum Steuern in Deutschland. Also wird mein ausgegebenes Geld niemals in unsere Infrastruktur und in Zuwendungen (Solidaritätsprinzip und so) für uns in Deutschland zurückfließen können. Die Läden vor Ort, die Handwerksbetriebe und Restaurants – jeder Selbstständige in Deutschland muss so viele Steuern zahlen -> Ich sehe das einfach so: Vielleicht ist das auch der Grund, warum sich die Läden in Sachen Preispolitik den Versandriesen geschlagen geben müssen. Ein Webshop wird dir nie das gleiche Shopping Erlebnis geben können, wie der Laden, den du liebst. Ich möchte dazu auch sagen, dass ich auch Läden mit Ware in schlechter Qualität oder mit schlechtem Service meide. Das muss ich mir nicht antun – da gibt’s normalerweise genug Konkurrenz.

So I do my easter shopping in local stores, even in Corona Times.

Check out, if there are some webshops now 😉

Also werde ich mein Oster-Shopping, auch in Corona-Zeiten vor Ort machen.

Kuck mal, ob es mittlerweile ein paar mehrere Webshops gibt 😉

For decoration and papeterie I buy my stuff at the store below me. Because I like this Shop and would be really sad, when they have to close their business after Corona. I like their service and there is no waiting-time 😊 And they have now a fantastic webshop. (#thank you corona)

Für Deko und Papeterie kaufe ich die Geschenke und Sachen im Laden unter mir. Ich mag den Laden wirklich und es wäre super traurig, wenn der wegen Corona schließen müsste. Ich mag den Service dort und die haben keine Wartezeit. 😊 Und jetzt haben die auch noch einen super Webshop. (#dankecorona)

For books I shop in a little bookstore, for music and artwork I try to support my independent-artist-friends. Buy some tickets for their shows, buy their printing work and buy their new CD/Vinyl and merch. Take place in their web-concerts. They are really happy when you join them ;) To support them you can share it with your Friends -> it´s the best Promotion for the time after Corona.

Some Artists are doing now really nice Projects to survive Corona..

https://www.danielbenyamin.com/galerie/

Bücher kaufe ich in einem kleinen Buchladen – neuerdings auch meine E-Books. Mit dem Kauf von Musik und Kunst versuche ich meine befreundeten unabhängigen Künstler zu unterstützen. Ich kaufe Tickets für deren Shows und Konzerte, ich kaufe Druck-werke und Bilder und ich kaufe auch deren neue CD/Vinyl oder deren Fanartikel.

Eine echt coole Aktion hat aktuell ein befreundeter Künstler laufen..

https://www.danielbenyamin.com/galerie/

Nehmt an den Webkonzerten und Happenings teil und teilt diese mit euren Freunden. Die Künstler freuen sich wirklich! Und das ist eine der besten Möglichkeiten um jetzt Werbung zu machen für die Zeit nach Corona.

-> Danke Musik-Klaus für deine unterhaltsamen gratis Webkonzerte! :)

https://musik-klaus.de/

For coffee and italian delicatessen(pastry) I will visit the little coffee-roasting shop in my street. (like always).

Um Kaffee zu kaufen gehe ich einfach in die kleine Rösterei am Ende der Straße – da bekomme ich auch italienische Delikatessen(Gebäck) her. (wie sonst auch immer)

https://www.cuxhavener-kaffeeroester.de/

For food – buy some vouchers at your favorite restaurant or order food by a click&collect or delivery service. (some of them have call & collect for years… I always order via call my pizza and collect it at my favorite pizzaria – because they have no delivery service :P)

Und ich kaufe einige Gutscheine von Restaurants in der Gegend oder bestelle einfach Essen dort über deren Lieferservice oder hol mir das Essen dort ab. Einige haben übrigens sowas wie call/click&collect schon seit Jahren… Ich rufe bei der Pizzaria meines Vertrauens stets an & hol mir die Pizza dort ab, um sie zuhause am Balkon in Ruhe zu essen 😉

Go to the Weekly Market in your City. (Please Keep Distance!)

Geht zum Wochenmarkt und haltet dort bitte Abstand!

For flowers -> order some plants and flowers at your market garden. (I bought herbage&soil for the high-bed at the market-garden of my friends).

Um Blumen und Pflanzen zu kaufen, bitte unterstützt eure Gärtnereien und Blumenhändler vor Ort. (Für mein Hochbeet habe ich die Kräuter im Blumenladen meiner Freunde gekauft, um die zu unterstützen.)

Now it´s time to shop & eat -> Shop & Eat Local! They need you!

Maybe it´s time for another economic miracle….

Stay home & Healthy

Jetzt ist es an der Zeit zu Shoppen und zu Essen! Kaufe und Esse lokal! Die brauchen dich!

Vielleicht ist es Zeit für ein weiteres Wirtschaftswunder….

Bleibt zuhause & Gesund

Sophia

PS: No Paid Ad. Keine bezahlte Werbung ;)

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kaijudyke · 4 years

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end of the year ask! 4 & 18

ah thank you azzy!

4. Movie of the year?

i had to google "movies that came out in 2019" because i couldn't think of any and after looking at a list i am forced to conclude that i literally have not seen a single one of them?? just straight up did not watch any new movies this year? so then i tried to think of a movie i watched for the first time this year even if it didn't actually come out this year and that was a bit easier because i did actually watch movies so i guess... hm i guess it would be disingenuous not to say venom given that it sparked a long-lasting and recurring special interest (even though i ended up fixating more on the comics than the movie)

18. A memorable meal this year?

hmmm..... OH i know! back in may my class went to oslo for a few days for a lecture by even mehl amundsen, and we stayed at a hostel that was ordinarily a dorm so it was on the grounds of a school and had a nice little outdoor area and stuff. one of the nights we were there we set up a charcoal grill and everyone brought whatever stuff they wanted to eat and we all crammed together around a couple of wooden picnic tables. it was my first time actually personally grilling because other members of my family have always handled it (i brought halloumi and corncobs and sliced zucchini). the food was good and i had a really fun time with my classmates and teachers!

#ask tag

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mehless · 5 years

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mehles you have been so kind to me over the years you are a true friend 😤👊

i just like to do a little of this, little of that! normal stuff. all part of being epic, and its a mutual feeling !

#angelmorningstar #asks #reply #bushwa

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the-spoopy-ghost-of-raejin99 · 5 years

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So my dad has this old German-American cookbook from the 80's, Das Mehl ist Anders (The Flour is Different) which has a lot of really good recipes adapted to stuff you can more easily find in American supermarkets. I was just looking online to see if i could find a copy of my own, and some people are selling them for like $100. I know it's out of print, but man.

There were a couple people selling older copies for around $25, so I might go for that, but still.

I just wanna make some Kaesespaetzle

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hellomehlo · 5 years

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Get to know me tag!

(Mehl’s actually posting, omg whaaaat)

I promised I wasn’t dead, and I’m not (except uni is killing me omg) so I thought I’d do this cute lil’ thang

I was tagged by @simprising (ty xoxo)

Here we go!

nickname: most people call me Mehl online, and I roll with it :)

gender: female

astrological sign: scorpio

height: 173cm

sexuality: straight (my roommate told me I was a gay man in a straight woman’s body though, because I live and breathe RuPaul’s Drag Race)

favorite animal: golden retriever puppy or a fox

number of blankets: 2 or 3 on top of my doona, depends how cold it gets, (I like my feet to be weighed down when I sleep, so all my blankets are just piled at the end of my bed)

where i am from: Australiaaaaaa

dream trip: Broadway theatre trip to NYC 😍😍

type of sims player: storyteller/CAS nerd - I either spend hours in CAS or I just take endless screenshots and make lil stories for my sims bc I like giving them personalities :-))

most wanted ts4 item: the dryers from laundry day bc they fold laundry and you can put it away by throwing it in the air, heheh

favorite ts4 expansion pack: seasons

favorite ts4 game pack: spa day, parenthood

favorite ts4 stuff pack: laundry day

when i created this account: July 18th, 2018

why i created this account: I love reading and following people’s legacies on their tumblr accounts and I love the idea of making characters that not only have value to you as the player, but a wider audience as well (a bit like a movie or tv series!)

I’m gonna tag @allieice @lemonywaffles @suddenlycowplants @darlingimmasimmer and if any of y’all wanna do this, consider yourself tagged!

#kinda non sims #sims 4 #the sims 4 #ts4 #ts4 seasons #sims 4 seasons

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bibastibootz · 11 months

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1x03 🤝 3x12

"Pass me the ball! Pass me the ball!! Me, me, me! I want the ball! Pass me the ball, please!!!"

#jamie tartt #ted lasso #ted lasso spoilers #ted lasso tv #of all the callbacks to s1 this might be my fave 🥹#video #mehl stuff

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kmp78 · 3 years

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This Lauren Mehl girl who was with Jalery on Vacay in Cali posted the same Tiktok like Valery in her story. Some kind of rich people stuff we are too poor to understand?

Or some über-fancy hoity toity meme thibgie we're too stupid to figure out... 🤷🏼‍♀️

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xtruss · 4 years

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Looted Landmarks: How Notre-Dame, Big Ben and St. Mark's Were Stolen From the East

They are beacons of western civilisation. But, says an explosive new book, the designs of Europe’s greatest buildings were plundered from the Islamic world – twin towers, rose windows, vaulted ceilings and all

— The Guardian USA | Oliver Wainwright | Thursday August 13, 2020 | Architecture

It’s time someone straightened out the narrative’ … Notre-Dame cathedral in Paris, which is explored in Stealing from the Saracens. Photograph: Pawel Libera/Getty Images

As Notre-Dame cathedral was engulfed by flames last year, thousands bewailed the loss of this great beacon of western civilisation. The ultimate symbol of French cultural identity, the very heart of the nation, was going up in smoke. But Middle East expert Diana Darke was having different thoughts. She knew that the origins of this majestic gothic pile lay not in the pure annals of European Christian history, as many have always assumed, but in the mountainous deserts of Syria, in a village just west of Aleppo to be precise.

“Notre-Dame’s architectural design, like all gothic cathedrals in Europe, comes directly from Syria’s Qalb Lozeh fifth-century church,” Darke tweeted on the morning of 16 April, as the dust was still settling in Paris. “Crusaders brought the ‘twin tower flanking the rose window’ concept back to Europe in the 12th century.”

Twin towers flanking a monumental arched entrance … the remains of Qalb Lozeh church in Syria, the inspiration behind Notre-Dame. Photograph: Bertramz

It is not only the twin towers and rose window that have their origins in the Middle East, she pointed out, but also the ribbed vaults, pointed arches and even the recipe for stained glass windows. Gothic architecture as we know it owes much more to Arab and Islamic heritage than it does to the rampaging Goths. “I was astonished at the reaction,” says Darke. “I thought more people knew, but there seems to be this great gulf of ignorance about the history of cultural appropriation. Against a backdrop of rising Islamophobia, I thought it was about time someone straightened out the narrative.”

And so she has, with Stealing from the Saracens, an exhilarating, meticulously researched book that sheds light on centuries of borrowing, tracing the roots of Europe’s major buildings – from the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey to Chartres cathedral and St Mark’s basilica in Venice – back to their Middle Eastern precedents. It is as much a story of political power, wealth and fashion as it is of religious belief, with tales of looting Crusaders, fashion-conscious bishops and globe-trotting merchants discovering new styles and techniques and bringing them home.

“Now we have this notion of east and west,” says Darke. “But back then, it wasn’t like that. There were huge cultural exchanges - and most came from the east to the west. Very little went the other way.”

Masterpiece of geometry … the exquisite interior of Córdoba’s mosque-cathedral. Photograph: Ingo Mehling

Given their prevalence in the great cathedrals of Europe, it is easy to imagine that pointed stone arches and soaring ribbed vaults are Christian in origin. But the former dates back to a seventh-century Islamic shrine in Jerusalem, while the latter began in a 10th-century mosque in Andalucia, Spain. In fact, that first known example of ribbed vaulting is still standing. Visitors to the Cordoba Mezquita can marvel at its multiple arches intersecting in a masterpiece of practical geometry and decorative structure, never needing a repair in its thousand-year existence. The vaulted maqsura – the part of the mosque reserved for the ruling caliph – was designed to cast a sacred glow across the leader. However, the official leaflet will tell you little of the building’s Islamic origin, perhaps because it has been a Catholic church since 1236.

The pointed arch, meanwhile, was a pragmatic solution to a problem encountered by masons working on the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem. One of the holiest sites in the Muslim world, it was built in 691 by the ruler of Islam’s first empire. The challenge was how to line up an outer arcade of rounded arches with a smaller inner arcade, while maintaining a horizontal ceiling between them. For the openings to align, the masons had to give the inner arcade tighter arches, forcing them to become pointed. Another world first can be spotted higher up in the shrine, where encircling the dome is an arcade of trefoil arches, the three-lobed style of arch that went on to encrust practically every European cathedral, voraciously adopted as a symbol of the Holy Trinity.

“Again and again,” says Darke, “I am so struck by how much of this stuff that we think of as essentially Christian and European was based on ignorance and misinterpretation of much earlier Islamic forms.” She points out that the enormous influence of the Dome of the Rock was down to the Crusaders of the Middle Ages mistakenly thinking the building was the Temple of Solomon.

Looks familiar? … from left, the interior of Jerusalem’s Dome of the Rock, and Temple Church in London. Composite: Virtutepetens/Getty Images/iStockphoto

They used the domed, circular layout of this supposedly Christian shrine as the model for their Templar churches (like the City of London’s round Temple church), even copying the decorative Arabic inscription, which openly chastises Christians for believing in the Trinity rather than in the oneness of God. Their pseudo-Kufic calligraphic patterns went on to adorn French cathedral stonework and the borders of richly woven textiles, with no one aware of what they actually meant.

The confusion was spread further by the first printed map of Jerusalem, published in Mainz, Germany, in 1486. It not only mislabels the Dome of the Rock as the Temple of Solomon, but depicts the building with a fine onion dome – a pure orientalist fantasy from the mind of a Dutch woodcut artist named Erhard Reeuwich. The book containing the map became a bestseller, reprinted 13 times and translated into multiple languages, influencing the spread of onion-domed churches across Europe in the 16th century. It is a tale of mistaken identity and unintended consequence worthy of a Monty Python sketch.

The transfer of Islamic motifs to the west wasn’t always so simple, though. The pointed arch took a more circuitous route. Darke traces how the arches first spread to Cairo, becoming sharper and more pointed under the Abbasid empire, and were in turn admired by visiting merchants from the wealthy Italian port of Amalfi, who channelled discoveries from their travels into their eclectic 10th-century basilica. This exotic building caught the eye of Abbot Desiderius, who visited Amalfi in 1065 on a shopping trip for rare luxury merchandise, and decided to take the pointed window design for his monastery at Monte Cassino.

More Arab than European … Jerusalem’s Dome of the Rock, left, and St Mark’s basilica in Venice. Composite: Godot13/Zairon

Those windows were then copied for the Benedictine abbey at Cluny in France, the largest church in the world at the time. Abbot Suger, an adviser to kings Louis VI and VII, liked how the windows let in more light, and immediately applied the same design to his Saint-Denis basilica in Paris. Regarded as the earliest fully gothic structure, the basilica was completed in 1144 and its architect went on to work at Notre-Dame. “They all just copied it,” says Darke. “These were the most powerful churches in Europe, so the style completely took off, as all fashions do. When powerful people adopt something, everyone wants one.”

The list goes on. There are the early square minarets, found on such buildings as the Great Mosque of Damascus, that taper thinner and are crowned with a bulbous finial dome. These inspired such great Italian towers as those of Florence’s town hall and St Mark’s Campanile in Venice, prefiguring centuries of church bell-towers.

Drawing on architectural historian Deborah Howard’s research, Darke shows Venice to be more Arab than European, from its narrow winding passageways and courtyard homes with rooftop terraces, to the Islamic ornamentation of the Doge’s Palace (modelled on Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem) and the onion domes of St Mark’s. All are the fruit of trips made by Venetian merchants to Egypt, Syria, Palestine and Persia, fostering a level of influence that extended even to fashion: women in Venice were veiled in public and dressed in black from head to toe. “One cannot see their faces for all the world,” a 15th-century source commented. “They go about so completely covered up, that I do not know how they can see to go along the street.”

The book comes at a charged time, when supposedly western architecture is being mobilised by right-wing nationalist groups to bolster their idealised vision of a “pure” European identity. There are now countless social media accounts promoting messages of white supremacy disguised as heritage appreciation, while recent government edicts about tradition and beauty carry similar overtones. Darke’s work takes an eloquent sledgehammer to such ignorant, dog-whistle propaganda, revealing how the monuments idealised by the alt-right have their roots in the very culture of which they are so suspicious.

Borrowed time … from left, the now destroyed minaret of the Great Mosque in Aleppo, Syria; and Big Ben in London. Composite: Alamy/Getty Images/Dorling Kindersley

The ignorance is widespread, and perhaps the most surprising thing in Stealing from the Saracens is how much of this should not come as a surprise to the modern reader. After all, throughout the book, Darke summons the words of Christopher Wren, who was well aware of the Middle Eastern origins of gothic architecture, and of the structural techniques he was using for St Paul’s Cathedral.

“Modern gothic,” he wrote in the 1700s, “is distinguished by the lightness of its work, by the excessive boldness of its elevations … by the delicacy, profusion and extravagant fancy of its ornaments … Such productions, so airy, cannot admit the heavy Goths for their author.” Instead, he concluded, “from all the marks of the new architecture, it can only be attributed to the Moors; or what is the same thing, to the Arabians or Saracens”.

The irony is in the name itself: in Wren’s day, Saracen was a pejorative term for the Arab Muslims, against whom the Crusaders had fought their “holy war”. It originated from the Arabic word “saraqa”, meaning “to steal”, as Saracens were seen as looters and thieves. Never mind the fact that the Crusaders plundered their way across Europe, Jerusalem and Constantinople – pilfering the wonders of Islamic architecture as they went, and airbrushing the origins of their booty in the process.

• Stealing from the Saracens: How Islamic Architecture Shaped Europe by Diana Darke is published by Hurst on 20 August.

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lottiemilfews · 7 years

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Get to know me tag

Rules - tag 20 followers you’d like to get to know

Tagged by - @princessroot ! thank you^^

Name - Melanie

Nicknames - Mel, Melonie, Mehl, (blueberry for Cati @tats-pups-and-cats :D)

Gender - Female

Star sign - Taurus

Height - 5'5"

Sexuality - lesbian

Hogwarts house - Hufflepuff

Favourite animal - all kinds of cats but I also love deer

Average hours spent sleeping - hmm.. 7? 8? not enough

Dogs or cats - cats all the way but I like dogs too

Number of blankets I sleep with - one, two when it’s cold

Dream trip - maybe Scotland or Iceland. but my Dream Trip? to the moon and further

Dream job - when I was about 6 I wanted to sing at the Opera :D now I’d only like to be a translator for literature

When I made this account - January 19th, 2015

Why I made this account - initially, this was supposed to be a personal sideblog for poetry and stuff but I couldn’t contain the gay hjfhj

# of followers - 242 as of today bc Somebody unfollowed me for unknown reasons..

I surely won’t tag 20 but: @sapphos-throne @lonely-night @agentsdangvers @tats-pups-and-cats @kla1991 @crimsoncat21 @steevienicks @sh00t @violets @istolethejellyfish if you want to! No pressure ofc^^

and if I didn’t tag you and you’d like to do this anyway? please do and say I tagged you!

#tag game #personal

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blapisblogs · 7 years

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Okay, this isn’t what I usually post on here, but since this considers a movie I recently added to my blacklist, and has been cluttering my thoughts since I saw it, I figured fuck it, I have to write something about this.

Recently I made the decision to join a group of people online to watch a bootleg recording of the Emoji Movie.

It’s bad.

Shocking, I know, but I mean it. It is bad. Not even funny bad, just bad. As in it exceeded my already low expectations. I set the bar on the ground and it burrowed under it.

I may not ever liveblog this movie (because Jesus Christ, why would I even if I didn’t watch it already), but I will talk about why I felt it was bad.

Spoilers below the cut. Not spoilers for the Emoji Movie (because it really doesn’t deserve a spoiler-free rant(?)), but for other, better animated movies that others have already pointed out that it at least vaguely resembles (namely Wreck-It Ralph and The Lego Movie).

For starters, the overall pacing of this movie is hands-down the worst I’ve ever seen for anything. It literally fucked up the perception of time for the other people who were watching it, myself included. I can’t even find words to describe what terrible pacing this has, or even find an apt comparison for it because it’s just that unbelievably incompetent. There were three writers working on this thing, and it seemed like none of them had a single idea of how basic story flow works.

Speaking of the story, it’s just as dull and confusing of a mess as most people had feared. It has all the trademarks of your formulaic animated kids movie. Male protagonist who doesn’t fit in but wants to change that? Yep. Annoying best friend (who doesn’t act like one in this at all) sidekick that’s supposed to be funny and charming (but in this movie actually isn’t either of those things)? Yeah. Girl character who’s “not your typical girl” who ends up being the love interest to the main protagonist? Oh you better believe that’s there. Main Protagonist does something that puts multiple people in danger and now he and his newfound friends have to go out to save everyone, and in the end he defeats the bad guy and gets to be himself? Oh yes. Bland cishet romance? Duh. Jokes that try to appeal to millennials but fall flat? Definitely. Bathroom jokes? There’s a freaking poop emoji (two, actually), of course there is. Oh, and so much blatant product placement that it’d make an Adam Sandler movie blush.

The internal logic of this movie’s world just doesn’t make sense. In this film, whenever someone wants to use an emoji, that emoji gets scanned, and the ones with expressions have to make and hold the right face while they’re being scanned, and apparently they have to go through this process every time the phone user wants to use an emoji. Why do they need to be re-scanned every time? Wouldn’t it be a lot easier to just take a picture of everyone once and use that? Why do they all have to act “in character” for their whole lives even when they’re not going to be scanned? (You know how the characters in Wreck-It Ralph “break character” once the arcade closes? Yeah, that’s definitely not what happens in this movie; what you see is what you get.) There are animal, food and object emojis in this world, so do they get to have different emotions while others don’t? Emoticons exist in this universe (as elderly people), so what happens if the user wants to send one of those instead of an emoji? The emojis with expressions definitely have parents since at least three of the characters are parents, so how does that even work? If two different emojis have a kid together, what does that kid turn out to be? Are two different emojis even allowed to be together in this fucked up universe? Why do the poop emojis need to use the bathroom?! There are so many questions that this movie raises, and pretty much none of them are answered. I mean, as bad as the Cars films can be with a similar “how is that even possible in this universe” logic problem, even those aren’t quite as in-your-face questionable as the ones this movie brings up. (Plus, there are at least minor attempts at getting around some things in the Cars series, whereas the Emoji Movie doesn’t even try.)

The characters are all pretty much one-dimensional, even the ones that are supposed to be more “complex” than the others. It’d be one thing if they were at least enjoyable to watch, but they’re not. Gene, the main character, is supposed to be someone the audience likes, but the moment that his confession of forced heterosexual feelings “love” for Jailbreak is rejected by her, he leaves both her and High-Five, and while the writers obviously want people to feel bad for him, it comes off as him acting like an asshole just because his spontaneous feelings weren’t reciprocated by the woman he didn’t even know for a whole day (I think it was a day anyway; like I said, the pacing and sense of time in this movie is fucked up). The writers want you to believe that Gene and High-Five are friends, but given that High-Five initially wanted to go with him for selfish purposes (he’s a “loser” emoji who doesn’t get used much at all and thus gets excluded from some kind of after-party thing, which also brings up a lot of questions), and given the lack of any sort of interaction between the two to imply that they’re growing closer as friends, it comes off as completely false and forced. (Also, I know in most animated stuff they record the actors separately, but dear lord, you should not be able to easily tell that the voice actors for the characters interacting with each other on screen were never in the same room together. In this film it’s painfully obvious that High Five’s voice actor had little to no interactions with the other actors because he has so many moments of solo ad-libbing that make no sense and nobody bothered to stop him or leave any of it out despite it not even being funny.) There’s a moment where Gene’s father, Mehl (haha), reveals that he also has more than one emotion but he’s learned to suppress it, and it’s supposed to be emotional, but given that the earlier scenes he had with his wife, Mehry (HAHA), had him blaming her for why Gene is the way he is, it doesn’t quite make up for what he said in those earlier scenes, and in a way seems to make it worse since he knew it was “his fault” yet blamed her for it anyway. At the end of the movie, Jailbreak goes from being a character who ran away to pursue her dream of being more than what she is supposed to be, to... well, love interest. Yeah, she does other stuff, but at the end she’s basically just a love interest for Gene. Oh, and she also rudely brushed off her mom who was no doubt worried sick about her for who knows how long rather than give her any sort of comfort, which doesn’t make her very likable either. Also, the actual humans that exist outside the phone are barely in this, and their subplot is pretty pointless. (It’s also a forced heterosexual subplot too, because one just wasn’t enough I guess.)

You know how one of the biggest rules of writing is “Show, Don’t Tell”? Apparently none of the three writers working on this movie have heard of that, or they have and they completely ignored it, because there is a lot of telling in this movie and not much showing, especially in the opening with Gene narrating for several minutes.

I don’t think any of the writers know anything about how the internet or smartphones work, or anything at all. The child has a disguised “piracy” app on his phone? They think that it’s possible to reverse the deletion process on a phone, while it’s happening no less? (Factory reset? What’s that?) I am pretty sure that they don’t understand that internet trolls are actual people and not a thing the internet itself makes up? The kid calls the store so he can make an “appointment” for his malfunctioning phone instead of just going there? There are several points where the kid with the phone could’ve just turned off or muted his phone, but didn’t because I don’t know?

(Wreck-It Ralph spoilers ahead) There are revelations that come out of nowhere with absolutely no build-up and are poorly timed, and the biggest example of this has to be the scene it’s randomly revealed that Jailbreak is the missing princess emoji that was only briefly brought up one time before that. I knew that this twist was coming due to it being spoiled in other reviews, and I’ve seen badly-handled reveals before, but I’ve never seen it handled this poorly before. Say what you will about Wreck-It Ralph, but the reveal that Vanellope was the actual ruler of Sugar Rush had hints and build-up to it, and it waited until the time was right to confirm that information to the audience, unlike this movie where the reveal is dropped on the audience somewhere in the second act without much if any build-up to it because the writers just threw their hands up into the air and said “Fuck it! I don’t know! Who cares!”

Sir Patrick Stewart as the poop emoji was completely pointless. I don’t think he even got that much screentime, and the only thing they really did with it is a random Star Trek joke that makes zero sense in the context of the movie itself. (He’s sitting in a chair in his “assigned cube” like Picard does in Star Trek TNG, even though none of the other emojis have chairs in their cubes and this reference is just there because... really forced voice actor reference.) Of course that’s not even getting into the fact that there’s a character who is literally sentient feces. I know it seems ridiculous for me to criticize this part since one of my favorite guest characters from Rick and Morty is Fart, but Rick and Morty is already a weird show with side character names that are even weirder than that, the casting of a decently-known actor for that small part made sense (Fart’s very Bowie-inspired, and Clement is well known for his “rough impersonation” of Bowie), and wasn’t just “we got this well-acclaimed actor to voice a literal turd; that’s the joke”. Plus, at least the writers of Rick and Morty can at least, you know, write characters and a story.

Speaking of characters, there’s something I find unsettling about how the women in this movie are portrayed. Jailbreak starts off as a character with a goal to make it to The Cloud (literally shown as a cloud, of course), but by the end of the movie it seems she completely gave up that dream because she fell victim to the writers’ need to make her a heterosexual love interest to the boring male protagonist for no reason realized she loved Gene for no reason. Gene’s mother, Mehry, is the only one in the family who doesn’t have any “unusual emotions”, while her son and husband do. The only human girl in the real world that I know has a name is just a love interest (though to be fair, the rest of the human characters aren’t very well defined either). The only female character in the cast who isn’t a love interest is the villain, and she’s clearly meant to be an unlikable bitch who wants people to either conform or die. All of the characters are written badly, but something about how these writers portrayed their female characters really doesn’t sit well with me. I doubt this was intentional (at least I really hope it wasn’t), but still.

Like I said, the product placement in this movie is horribly blatant, with probably the most painful example being Candy Crush (which is now adding Emoji Movie levels). I’ve heard that someone in charge of production said that the apps shown in this were going to be shown front and center in this movie, but christ. You’d think that maybe there would be some creativity as to how these apps look and work inside the phone from the perspective of a character who exists inside it, but... no, not really. Hell, the Candy Crush app just made me think of Sugar Rush from Wreck-It Ralph and remind me of how much better that movie is in comparison. Or lots of other movies, for that matter.

(Wreck-It Ralph and LEGO Movie spoilers ahead, and possibly Inside Out too) Speaking of which, early on people were already crying “ripoff” because the basic premise already sounded so similar to that of Wreck-It Ralph (only it’s a phone rather than video games), LEGO Movie (at the very least with Jailbreak resembling Wyldstyle), and Inside Out. I haven’t seen the latter film (yet), but I can say that the accusations about it ripping off the other two aren’t far off. For starters, the basic premise is similar to The LEGO Movie (male protagonist goes on an adventure with his newfound funny friends and eventual love interest and saves the world from a bad guy), with some elements of Wreck-It Ralph mixed in (set inside something humans play with, protagonist is treated differently from others but learns to believe in himself, his newfound friend doesn’t fit in either, one friend turns out to be royalty, in a way it even kinda rips off how the opening was narrated by the main protagonist). However, what made Wreck-It Ralph and The LEGO Movie both more successful than this one (among multiple other things) was that they actually did something with their settings and plot, and they featured characters that were written so that people would want to see them succeed. Emmet’s relatable because there are people who don’t think they’re special or talented in a world where everybody else is. Ralph is relatable because there are people who are judged for what they do for a living without knowing them on a more personal level. We’re supposed to like Gene because... well, because the movie said so. Yeah, he’s different, but unlike Ralph and Emmet, there’s no sense of charm or wit to him (or anyone else in this movie, for that matter). What it also lacks that the other two have (again, among many other things) is heart, and at least some subtle forms of creativity. I can tell that the people who worked behind both of those movies had fun with what they were doing and believed in it. The Emoji Movie just... doesn’t. It feels like cheap, poorly-handled advertisement first and a movie dead last. I couldn’t think of anything I saw in it that didn’t make me think of something else that handled it better.

Also, this has nothing to do with the movie itself, but I’ve come to hate the people who use the “kids might like it” argument to justify this movie’s existence. Kids deserve better than movies like this, and in this day and age there’s plenty of things that kids would like that have more respect for their intelligence than this movie does.

This, however, I will blame the movie for: the people behind it have been shown saying stuff like “it has a good message” and it’s “feminist,” but it’s all just blatant lies; nothing about this movie is progressive or has a good, well thought-out message in general. I’ve heard men who hate this movie claim that the “feminism” in this movie is forced, and it is, just not in the way they say it is (considering they usually imply that feminism in general is bad and unnecessary). Look, Wonder Woman (as a comic book series and a character; I haven’t seen the movie yet) is feminist; the Emoji Movie is not. The Emoji Movie is trying to disguise itself as feminist (or rather what some doofuses think feminism is) as a tactic to get people to see it because that’s what people these days want to see, and the execution makes it obvious that they don’t really care about actually being feminist or even understand what it means. One person in the stream said that one of the creators claimed that Gene’s inability to handle just having one single emotion and his dad’s suppressed multiple emotions was supposed to be a metaphor about being gay (though I found it to be more akin to being a metaphor about being neurodivergent), but if that’s supposed to be true, then why not just actually make Gene gay? (Not like anybody in the LGBT+ and/or neurodivergent community would want to be associated with this garbage movie; I’m bi and autistic and I know I wouldn’t.) I honestly think that they just said it so that they could sucker people into seeing it. In fact, that’s how it seems to be for all the other “good messages” it wants to send as well: they say they’re there, but they’re just saying it because they know that’s part of what sells these days, and they think that if they just say that then people will give it their attention and money, and I honestly find that despicable.

In short, this movie offers nothing to most everyone (I say “most” only because this could be used as an example of how not to make a good movie), and the people who green-lit this should be embarrassed. I know some people want to see it ironically, but please don’t go out and see it, especially not in theaters. It’s not worth your time, and especially not worth your money.

#not a liveblog #long post #Lego Movie spoilers #Wreck-It Ralph spoilers #Emoji Movie //

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